The Rood and the Torc Read online

  Not until another gull let out a loud screech close to his ears did Kristinge snap out of his daydream. How long he had stood there he did not know, but the sun was much farther to the west than when he had arrived. He had been lost in some distant memory of a summer’s day long ago—the sound of young children playing along the beaches, looking for pieces of amber washed up upon the sand. He shook his head slowly as if trying to release the memory. Then he turned around to depart. It was time to begin the journey to Ezinge. Yet he couldn’t help one last look. He turned back toward the water again. The low clouds along the horizon were beginning to glow red. The day had almost passed and he had traveled no more than a mile. He would be hard-pressed to make it to Ezinge by the following evening.

  “So be it,” Kristinge said aloud. He could begin his journey to Ezinge in the morning. This was as fitting a place as any to spend his first night alone in Friesland. He had seen some dry driftwood and a few dead branches with which he could build a fire. And he still had a loaf of bread and a flask of mead. There were sure to be springs about where he could find water, and he had not forgotten all he had learned at Luxeuil about wild roots and seeds. Abandoning his perch, he climbed down from the tower and set about gathering wood before it grew too dark. Since moving into his own hut with Willimond the previous fall, Kristinge had taken to keeping a tinder box. Building a small hearth with a few stones that had either fallen from the tower or still remained from its construction, he was able to start a small blaze. When he was satisfied with it, he leaned up against the wall of the tower and reached for his harp and the remainder of his food.

  It was a cool evening, and the warmth of the fire felt nice as Kristinge stretched his fingers along the harp strings and caressed them. For some reason, perhaps just his sense of solitude, the instrument sounded strangely compelling that night. Though he had no audience, he was in the mood to play. He paused briefly for some drink and a bite of bread. The strong wine tasted good on his dry lips, and he took a second then third swallow. Then, with a second bite of bread still in his mouth, he closed his eyes and gave in to the harp and the impulses rising within him.

  As if in answering harmony, the wind began a slow whistling through the chinks in the rock tower, and the trees creaked gently in the breeze. Before long, the quiet solitude of his playing had become a performance. Inspired by the sound of his harp—which on rare nights like this had a mind of its own—or maybe inspired by his return home or simply by the beauty of his surroundings, new melodies began to spring from Kristinge’s fingertips. Melodies strange to his ears, yet mysteriously familiar. For a time, then, it seemed to him that he was no longer the player but had become the audience, and he was barely aware of the movement of his fingers. Only thrice more in his life did such a feeling ever come upon him. And though in the weeks to come bits and pieces of those melodies came back to him, he could not again create that moment nor could he remember most of the songs save as a fleeting memory or as one remembers a dream. Yet at the time, whether or not he would later remember the songs did not matter. Though no audience was there to hear him, he was immersed in song.

  How long this lasted, Kristinge did not know. He had been playing for some time when he opened his eyes and glanced up from the strings. The fire had died down to a hot bed of coals with but a few flickering yellow and orange flames. And across the fire, a pair of white eyes glowed against the dark background. The sight startled Kristinge, and in the darkness of a strange place the worst possibilities jumped at once to his mind. Wild animals. A boar, or perhaps wolf. His hand froze, and he nearly dropped his harp. Or a bear. Resisting panic, he reached to throw more wood on the fire hoping the flames would scare the creature away. It was then he realized that the eyes were too high off the ground for an animal. They were more the height of… Even as Kristinge realized that it was a man, the stranger stepped forward into the light of the fire.

  He was tall, with a heavy bear-skin cloak and a matching fur hood covering his ears. Where he had come from, Kristinge did not know. At the moment, it did not matter. Instinctively, he inched toward the wall, pressing his back against the stone in a defensive posture. The man was wearing a sword, and his right hand rested on the hilt.

  Robbers! Kristinge thought, as he looked around for some defense. But he was alone and unarmed, and there was no place to flee. He’d rather have faced the animals. Though he knew there was little Willimond could have done, he wished his old friend was with him.

  “Keep playing,” the stranger said. There was in his voice a tone of command. Kristinge’s obeyed. His thoughts turned to the treasure he had brought with him from Francia and Danemark. His mother’s necklace was still about his neck for all to see. As for his gold, he had foolishly left it all in the purse at his waist. It was too late to hide it now. But the thought came to him of Luxeuil, and the two times during his years there when robbers had come down from the mountains and set upon the monks. And he thought of the love that had been shown by the abbot even to them—even after they had speared two of the monks. Still, Kristinge’s hands were trembling as they returned to his harp. Obeying the stranger’s orders, he began to strum it again, softly but continuously, as if his life depended on his obedience.

  “What were you singing?” the man asked, taking another step forward and holding his hands out to warm them by the fire. His heavy accent was unmistakably Frisian. His face was also better lit now, and Kristinge could see his charcoal eyes beneath bushy gray eyebrows and a creased forehead. It was not, he thought, the face of a robber.

  “Deor’s lament,” he answered, looking into the darkness on either side of the stranger. Was he alone?

  “You are a bard.”

  Kristinge nodded, though it had been said as a statement and not a question.

  “In the service of a king?”

  “I was,” Kristinge answered, thinking back on Fjorgest. I am no longer, he almost added.

  “Do you have any bread?”

  The question caught Kristinge off-guard. He thought of the half loaf that remained from his dinner. It was all he had left to sustain him the following day. The thought of lying to preserve his remaining food crossed his mind. But his conscience would not let him lie. “Yes,” he answered. He turned to pull the bread from his bag and realized it was sitting out on the blanket to his right, in plain sight of the stranger. He was glad he had spoken the truth.

  The man sat down across from the fire. He reached over and helped himself to the bread. Again, Kristinge thought back on the stories of Columbanus’ first winter at Annegray. Those months had seen a steady succession of robbers coming down from the mountains upon the undefended monks, only to find that the monks were even poorer than the robbers themselves. And still they gave of what they had. As Abbot Walbert had done in Kristinge’s time, though raids from robbers were far fewer in those latter days and the population of the monastery much larger. “There is wine, too,” the young monk offered, ashamed that he had been tempted to lie. He handed his wine-skin to the stranger who took it and drank.

  “You are a stranger here, bard?”

  It was funny for Kristinge to hear himself called the stranger. He thought about the question. Had he so lost his Frisian accent in just six years? Perhaps that was good. How much should he tell this man? “I have come from Danemark. I spent the winter there in the service of a king.” As soon as he said this, he realized that it might be even less safe to come to this part of Friesland as a Dane than to come as the lost heir of Finn. He quickly added, “Before that I lived south in Francia.”

  The stranger was looking Kristinge over closely now, studying his face. “Francia and Danemark?” he repeated. “And yet you look oddly familiar to me.” When his eyes fell on the coin that hung around Kristinge’s neck, they opened in surprise or curiosity.

  … made … by the jeweler Deomaer… symbol of the union of the houses of Hoc and Folcwalda … His mother’s words echoed in Kristinge’s ears. Would the pendant be recognized as a mar
k of his identity? He quickly turned his eyes downward, feigning to concentrate on his harp while trying to hide his face from scrutiny. He wondered how he could remove the necklace or tuck it beneath his cloak without drawing more attention to it. With Willimond no longer with him, Kristinge felt far less confident; more vulnerable. His hands were trembling. Yet the man did not appear to be a threat. His questions were harmless enough. Perhaps it was Kristinge’s imagination. The thought of Willimond had put him in the mood for some company.

  “Where are you going?” the stranger asked before Kristinge had a chance to say anything.

  “To Ezinge,” Kristinge answered looking back up at his new guest.

  He thought he caught a slight smile on the man’s face. “Ezinge will be fortunate to receive you,” he said. Then he explained. “Your playing of the harp is beautiful, as is the sound of your voice. A good bard is always well received.”

  “When I was playing earlier, I did not know I had an audience,” Kristinge replied, changing the subject of conversation. “I was startled when I saw you, else I would have offered hospitality sooner. If you seek a place to spend the night, you might rest by this fire. I don’t have enough wood to burn all night, but it will keep you warm for a time. And I would enjoy the company.”

  “If I can listen to you play and sing more, then I will gladly accept your offer.”

  Kristinge nodded, all the while continuing to play his harp. And the stranger fell silent, content to listen. The young monk-bard had thought to practice some new songs to ready them for Ezinge in case the chieftain there was in need of a bard. With an audience, he was no longer inclined to do so. In a low voice, he instead sang a few familiar Frisian songs and then put down his harp. His fingers were growing cold and he wrapped them in his cloak. The man spoke no more, and Kristinge didn’t have the energy to pursue a conversation. After a time, he rolled out his blanket and lay down. When he fell asleep, the stranger was still sitting across the fire.

  When Kristinge awoke the following morning, he was alone. For a moment, he forgot all about his guest of the night before. But when he remembered him, and the booted footprints in the damp soil convinced him that it hadn’t been a dream, his felt for his purse. It was still at his side, and nothing of his small wealth had been taken from him. More curious now, he rose and went in search of the stranger. He walked around the tower twice, looking for clues. More booted tracks led him a short distance down the slope to where he found signs of a horse having been hobbled for the night. But horse and rider were both gone now. Kristinge was not a good enough tracker to determine how old the prints were, but he guessed they had left at least an hour earlier. On foot he would never catch him. That was fine, though. Kristinge was content to be alone, though he couldn’t help wondering who the stranger was. He walked back up the hill, packed up his belongings, and started walking south and inland.

  As he expected, it took him nearly all day to reach Ezinge. Much of the land was still under water from the spring floods, and even the higher ground where he walked was wet and muddy. This made for difficult footing and slow travel. But despite the conditions, he did not risking straying far from the river knowing that the Hunze would eventually lead him to Ezinge. At present he was in no great hurry. And he was not sure he would be able to find his way to Ezinge if he wandered too far from the river. It had been many years since he had walked this route. So he plodded on. The sun rose higher on his left, and this day proved as beautiful as the last. Yet it was a strange walk. Despite the years that had elapsed since his departure from Friesland, and despite his uncertainty about the path, there was a certain vague familiarity to all Kristinge saw. This made the walk at once both enjoyable and also sad—a memory of years lost that could never be regained. He paused frequently to look around at this tree, or that hill, or some curve in the river familiar from his youth—trying if he could to capture the exact memory. And failing.

  The terpen village of Ezinge itself he still remembered. It was a wide village, with a large number of pit dwellings sprawled haphazardly across the top a fifteen foot high terp, very unlike the orderly layout of Hwitstan and many other Frisian and Danish villages. Of course terps—the wide flat mounds, manmade over many years by the buildup of cow dung and clay—were common in Friesland, particularly near the coast. Though they offered only little in the way of defense against human marauders, they did provide a secure refuge from water above the oft-flooded surrounding plains. The Ezinge terp had been inhabited for many generations. Though most of the dwellings were newer pit dwellings, a few of the older timber and thatch structures remained in the center of the village, left over from an earlier period. These taller wooden buildings rose up above the surrounding houses, and it was these that Kristinge first caught sight of against the skyline as he approached the village a few hours past midday. He was still a long way off, but the glimpse of the village filled him with excitement and he picked up his pace.

  Slowly the terp grew in size as he crossed the plain in a wide loop to avoid the floods. He lengthened his strides to match his eagerness. What would he find there? he wondered. One thing was first on his mind. For once it was not Aewin. Nor even thoughts of Finn, his father. It was the chapel he wondered about. When he reached the near slope of the terp, he turned without delay, following the old oxen-road—the axwei—around the northern edge of the village. He was almost running now, straight to where the chapel had once stood on the eastern edge of Ezinge. Though out of breath, he did not stop. Eagerly he climbed up one of many narrow paths from the axwei onto the terp, his eyes searching even before his feet reached the top.

  Though many years had passed, the village was much as he remembered it. Except one thing. There was no sign of the chapel. His heart pounded. Of a dozen possible explanations, the most likely was that the chapel had been torn down, destroyed by the priests of Freyr out of jealousy for their own wooden gods. Six years was too long a time to have left it abandoned. In his heart, Kristinge knew that. He had feared it all along. Yet he felt his heart sink when he remembered the labor Willimond had poured into it. He stood there for a long moment on the edge of the terp, with the cool wind in his face, fighting down the instinct to turn around and flee. Where else could he go? It was just a building. He could build another.

  “God give me strength…” he began. His prayer ended mid-thought, and his eyes opened wider in the sudden joyous revelation of a man reprieved. He started to run. There, half hidden behind two other huts and toward the center of the village, was Willimond’s old chapel. The small wooden structure was still standing after all. Kristinge had failed to see it at first because it was not where he had remembered it. Either the terp and village had grown around the chapel in the intervening years, or else his memory had been wrong. He didn’t care. He was so overjoyed to find the chapel still standing, he nearly sprinted to the entrance, his bag and harp bouncing on his shoulders as he ran.

  At the door of the chapel, Kristinge stopped. He took a deep breath. Then, setting his belongings on the ground, he opened the wooden door and peered inside. The chapel was small. About eighteen feet long and twelve feet wide. Tiny compared with some of the buildings at Luxeuil and Jouarre. Smaller even than the church in Hwitstan. But it was a place of worship and prayer, and Kristinge did not begrudge its size. With a sense of reverence, he stepped inside. His eyes fell at once to the cross at the back. A peasant in Hwitstan had made it for Willimond to bring to Ezinge. His eyes on this symbol of Christ’s humility, Kristinge dropped to his knees and offered prayers of thanksgiving for his safe voyage. And for the safekeeping of the chapel over those many years.

  As he sat there then, praising God for His faithfulness, a strange feeling came upon Kristinge. He looked down at his garments, gifts from the Queen Balthild now stained and worn from the wear and travel but still rich and warm. And he thought of his old monastic robe. For the first time in many months, he was back in a house of God. He returned to his bag of belongings, and sorted through his few i
tems of clothing. He stepped back into the chapel. Solemnly, he removed the heavy cloak given him by queen Balthild, and for the first time since his departure from Francia he donned once again his monk’s attire. He rubbed his scalp. He would have to reclaim his tonsure, having given it up upon his departure from Paris. Nonetheless, it felt comforting to be back in his old robe. Wearing what he had worn for so long in Luxeuil, he returned to his knees with renewed inspiration. Then he prayed for the village of Ezinge, and for guidance in his mission there. And for Willimond and Hildeburh. And for Luxeuil and Father Walbert. And for all of Francia, and Friesland, and Danemark. He stayed on his knees until the sun was touching the horizon.

  When he was finished, Kristinge rose again to his feet. It was then that he noticed how clean the chapel looked. The dirt floors had been swept clean of grass and debris, and the corners were free of cobwebs. There were no signs of deterioration in the building. Any holes in the wall had been filled with wattle. Could it be that somebody was still using the chapel? Were there still believers in Ezinge? Or—he shuddered—was the chapel being used for other purposes? It was time to find out. Turning around, he strode from the chapel. At the door he paused and looked down again at his belongings. After a moment’s contemplation, he picked up his bag and set it inside the building, choosing to carry only his harp with him. If the chapel had been taken, then it was time to claim it back. With that in mind, he went in search of the village chieftain.